Apologies it took me a day to get to this as I knew it would take me an hour or so with my lack of 1337 typing and grammar skills.

txa1265
"- There is some evil person at the head of these sites (Rscaife?)"
Yeah sort of but, I did make a mistake it was Rupert Murdock at the helm of the media organizations (websites) we were talking about, oh and he's the Australian whom owns 80&#37; of most of the English language Broadcast TV and News print across the US and world, iirc..

Part of the reason I confused both these guys is they are very corrupt and paid huge amounts to get vital government civil protections with deregulation, one of which is related to undermining the Media.
I had been trying to go by memory and had a conversation recently about (Rscaife), so to all Australian's I offended by suggesting (Rscaife) was Australian you have my apologies.

[My definition of evil (in case you want a baseline) is undermining humanity (human, civil and equal rights) without any regard for the consequences of their actions for power and profit, so obviously others might define it differently.]

The other things I said about Rscaife were accurate like the interview and I guess the evil part was more in the line of, the interview I sited and the financing this evil organizations.
Columbia School of Journalism is one of the most nonpartisan highly regarded journalism associations and schools possibly in the world, also associated with the Pew Charitable Trust, iirc.

After he made his first threat (?) to get out, he went on verbally attacking her saying she had bad teeth and verbally attacking her mother.
As she did comply by starting to leave he said,” Don’t look behind you." (another threat?).
Basically in 1981 when this happened info had started coming out about Iran Contra and the RNC undermining the 1980 elections by selling weapons to terrorists.
So through his financing to help get regan elected, his favor was getting
The Fairness Doctrine removed, which require news broadcast to provide accurate news.

This allows Rupert Murdock to run propaganda organizations like fox and new york (puke?) post and many others like the american spectator and media research center because they are not required to tell the truth.
They now use innuendo and opinion and call it news, which most of the US public doesn't seem to know.
In case you’re interested in the implications of this, control of the media for political propaganda is 1 of the 14 common denominators in one of the most extensive studies of all known fascist societies to have existed, by Dr. Lawrence Britt.
Oh and here in the US we currenlty have the other 13 denominators, isn't that hoot!

Crap in a way this brings us back to Rscaife (see why it's easy to confuse them) whose funding started these organizations though he was mostly a player during the 1980's and Rupert Murdock started in the mid to early 1990s and helping newt and others lie their way into control of the house and senate, not doing a single one of the ten promise to America pledges getting away terrible deregulation consequences for 10 years.

"- That identity theft is somehow uniquely associated with these sites?"
No, in my explanation of how identity thief happens more easily the more you give out your personal info like credit cards, the more likely the data is to get illegally purchased, might have seemed to suggest this but wasn't my intent that these sites are more dangerous.
They could be, though I couldn't tell you much about it, apologies.

"I guess I'm not sure where the line between being unable to register a user name, wanting not to wait 24 hours for a download, and being oppressed by evil overlords is drawn?"
Hehe , that actually sounds like a potential game.
As I mentioned Jabberwocky seemed annoyed at dealing with these sites, as if he had experienced it before, so I though I would explain why the sites do this, to the best of my knowledge, yet if you know differently then I would gladly hear why this occurs.
Not wanting to wait 24 hours only came in a little later when I brought it up as the most annoying to me personally, iirc.
So while this adds to the potential game design not sure it really relates to the topic other than a personal peeve.

"being oppressed by evil overlords is drawn?"
I really like this makes me want to change my nick.
I think/hope this was explained this above.

xSamhainx
"the most wildly creative theory as to why gaming sites want your email address"
Lol, it wouldn't be very nice of me to accept credit since not what meant or did intend it as so.

— Trust me, most of the names I have been called you can't translate in any language…they're not even real words as much as a succession of violent images.